Another excellent themed puzzle from Virgilius, the theme becoming apparent to me only quite late on.
The middle row is PARTS OF SPEECH and every row, sometimes in one word, sometimes reading across two, contains one in order ADVERB, CONJUNCTION, PRONOUN, PREPOSITION, PARTICLE, VERB. Solving time, 30 mins, and the usual brilliant clues from the master.
* = anagram < = reversed
ACROSS
6 GAL A HAD
9 VER (BEN) A
10 A N CON
11 J UNCTIONS
12 PRONOUCE D
13 V (I.E.) W Volkswagen
15 PARTS OF SPEECH Clue refers to theme and other answers.
19 R ASP
20 REPOSITION (Top senior I)*
24 PARTICLES ‘declines’ refers to grammar
25 HOSE A
26 OVER BUY Two cricket reference deliveries = over (six balls bowled) “Bye” one type of extra run.
27 SOR (CE) RY
DOWN
1 A LECTO (r) Greek mythology
2 AV (ENG) ERS Surface refers to cricket again.
3 BRUTE I think this refers to “Et tu, Brute” – last words of Julius Caesar when assassinated.
4 DEMONIAC (comedian)*
5 WAR SAW (was raw)< The Warsaw uprising, late in WWII
6 GRAPPA Very cleverly hidden
7 HANG-OUTS (A shotgun)*
8 D (I) J ON DJ = dinner jacket
14 PERIS HER
16 ASS OR TED
17 OVERLAYS (lover say)* Amusing surface
18 UN EASY
19 RAPTOR (parrot)*
21 O AS IS
22 IN STEP
23 LIMBO Double definition, the second one referring to the dance, I think, where the dancer goes under a bar
Brilliant.
Indeed. 15ac was one of the last I got, at which point I saw that not all of the clue referred to its own answer, and started looking for the theme, which was by no means obvious.
I read 23 down as a cryptic definition, limbo being a stage on the body’s descent into the underworld. But then, I suppose it’s the soul that makes that journey, so maybe you’re right!
Just to be pedantic, “article” is the part of speech that’s referenced – not “particle”.
Not really an expert on grammar, but I think it may be PARTICLE all right (an indeclinable word such as a preposition) which is referred to in the clue. Or maybe either would do…
Yes, you’re right – apologies. But yeah – either of them works.
Although they are both parts of speech, since all the others are hidden (apart from the main “parts of speech” one) I suspect that ARTICLE that was the one we were supposed to try and spot.
Whether the part of speech is PARTICLE or ARTICLE, I still don’t understand the clue for 24ac. We are told ‘‘declines’ refers to grammar’, but that doesn’t help me. Presumably so obvious that nmsindy saw no reason to say more, but …
It could be NOUN rather than PRONOUN.
Er, shurely we are talking about a function word, esp (in certain languages) a word belonging to an uninflected class having suprasegmental or grammatical function.
Even I knew that (after looking at the definition in Collins). And Virgil would have us believe that no declension is possible in the case of such a beast. I guess – since this is a double def and also a plural – we’re probably after ARTICLE.
Re Wil’s point at 7, I’m not an expert on grammar as I said but the reference to grammar in the explanation was intended to distinguish that meaning of ‘decline’ from more common ones.
I also looked in Chambers which told me ‘particles’ cannot be declined, which was something I did not know before yesterday…